


Where the wild roses grow

by taurussieben



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Friends With Benefits, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Minor Matt Holt/Lotor, One-Sided Keith/Shiro (Voltron), The Author Regrets Nothing, Unrequited Love, i made myself cry writing this, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22652638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taurussieben/pseuds/taurussieben
Summary: Rain your kisses down upon meRain your kisses down in stormsAnd for all who'll come before meIn your slowly fading formsI'm going out of my mindWill leave me standing inThe rain with a letter and a prayerWhispered on the windCome back to meCome back to meO baby please come back to me(Love Letter by Nick Cave)A story about love and loss in three acts.
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Matt Holt/Keith
Comments: 5
Kudos: 40
Collections: VLD Hanahaki Bang





	1. And my fingers bleed from the pieces of a broken dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where we meet Keith, and Shiro, and Matt...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay my friends, this is it, an angsty fic full of angst, buckle up and get the tissues ready.
> 
> But before we get going, some acknowledgments. 
> 
> First: My artist [@Cookie](https://twitter.com/fantasywalking)! Fun fact, this bang was the first official bang I signed up for (and it is the last that I'm posting of the three I joined in 2019. So I was super nervous to work with my artist, but Cookie was a joy to work with and since those tentative messages we have become friends. All my love to you. She did an amazing job, you can find the art [here](https://twitter.com/fantasywalking/status/1230191983722934272) or in Chapter 3. Please give her lots and lots of love!
> 
> Second: [@muse](https://twitter.com/museawayfic) (on [Ao3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/museaway)), who did a fabulous and amazing job as my final beta (every error after was added because I wrote stuff in and messed up). Thank you so very much.
> 
> Third: The title of the story is inspired by the song "Where the wild roses grow" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds with Kylie Minogue (1995). It is a song that never really left me, since the first time I listened to it. 
> 
> Fourth: I thank the mods for organizing the VLD Hanahaki!
> 
> And now... have fun~ or... well... ^^;;;

"Why are you not telling him that?" Matt Holt’s voice was curious. Everything was a grand puzzle for him; he just needed to figure it out, the kind of guy that got into a heated discussion about who wore it better: _Smerinthus ocellata_ or _Saturnia pyri_.

_That_. It was the kind of ‘that’ that knocked against Keith’s teeth from the inside begging to be let out, the type of ‘that’ that made his right wrist itch.

Keith turned the flyer on their table over, condensation from his soda had soaked into it. He traced the wet spots with his fingers. Printed on it was the usual "miracle" advertisement he saw on billboards, all neon and exclamation marks: _Come to us; we'll find your soulmate! Satisfaction guaranteed! Only $99.99!_ Keith wrinkled his nose.

Keith knew he was letting the silence drag on for too long. 

"Because—" He stopped, helpless. In truth, there were a myriad of reasons. Every one of them seemed inadequate. Maybe he was scared. He didn’t want anything to change. Everything should stay as it was. Throwing a needless confession into the mix wouldn’t help anyone. Keith chanced a glance at Matt, who watched him with furrowed brows. There was also a speculative glint Keith didn’t like a bit. He needed to distract him, fast. Keith’s gaze shifted, falling onto Matt’s right wrist.

The flower there was quite beautiful.

"How is Lotor these days?" Keith asked.

There was a flash in Matt's eyes. He knew he was being distracted, but Matt let himself be dragged under. While his curiosity and will to understand the world deep down to its lowest level was unparalleled by any person Keith had ever met, there was one thing that stood on the same footing with it all: Lotor, Matt’s soulmate.

Their soul-flower had been born on a rainy day last summer. Stoic and aloof Lotor had proclaimed his love for Matt, loud and earnest. And Matt had accepted.

Beautiful Lotor now made his way over, elegantly sidestepping the other customers in the small diner. His eyes met Keith’s. Cold and dominating, but as they shifted to Matt, there was warmth and gentleness. Keith was envious. They made an odd pair. Striking, but weird. Matt, with his sandy-blond hair and little ponytail, running around in clothes he’d fished out of the closet in the morning, and expensive Lotor, with his long, nearly white hair and luxurious garments. 

But they fit together. Lotor shoved Matt over on the seat in the booth. He never stopped waxing poetry about his fiance while earning a sharp elbow in his kidney and an eye roll. Fitting, in how Matt just laughed and kissed his fiance on the cheek, which always made Lotor's cheeks slightly pink.

Lotor's arrival was the cue. He always came first. Next would come Hunk, laughing at something Lance said---he always crossed the threshold after him. One round and with dark skin and black hair, the other long and gangly with brown hair and olive skin. Different from Matt, different from Lotor. Allura would be second to last. The first time Keith had met her, he’d thought she was Lotor's sister. While her family and Lotor's walked the same upper circles of society, they weren’t related. For a long time, they had all thought Matt was jealous of Lotor because of Allura. How wrong they’d been.

And last would come Shiro.

The man Keith Kogane loved.

"Shiro! Who’d you save today?" Lance shouted after he had shoved Keith shoved Keith further into the booth right against the diner window.

Shiro ducked his head sheepishly and dragged a chair over; he always got the head of the table. "A bird fell out of his nest, and there was a cat."

"Naturally," they all muttered in unison, which made Shiro blush and scratch at his neck. Then his gaze met Keith's, and he smiled.

Shiro's smiles were like the stars, endless and beautiful and scary. Keith saluted him with his drink before turning to Matt, who was mocking him again about his failure to use social media apps correctly.. 

Meeting Shiro should never have happened in the first place.

Keith, a creative writing major, had stumbled into the economics TA by accident. The economics faculty was on the other side of the campus, and no TA should be hanging around the colorful and wired labyrinth of the art and linguistic building. Their meeting held all the major plot points of a dramatic romcom: spilled hot coffee, grumpy scowling, twenty apologies, and the exchange of numbers to compensate for the poor, sacrificed coffee.

After that, everything else had fallen into place.

Shiro had brought with him an abundance of life, of optimism, of sunshine, and of light. Even with a fate worse than Keith's (no parents, a missing arm replaced by gleaming metal, a lost dream of stars and galaxies), Shiro was a gentle storm—one Keith didn’t mind being swept away in.

With Shiro had come Matt, who’d been followed by Lotor, which meant Allura had joined their ragtag group. Allura had brought Lance, who’d then brought Hunk. Keith had hated them all for intruding on his time with Shiro, but slowly he’d learned that he didn’t mind. 

Despite Keith being the first to arrive and Shiro being the last, they were always the leftovers, sitting in the diner well into the oncoming darkness, talking and laughing. Shiro, with his hair as white as Lotor's and Allura's (Lance still believed they’d formed some sort of cult), twinkling grey eyes and broad form. But his smile was always gentle like a spring breeze. 

"Keith?" 

He blinked. 

"Keith?" A warm palm enveloped his hands. It sent a tremor through Keith that he hoped Shiro didn’t notice.

"Sorry, you were saying?" He raised his eyes to Shiro’s. There was a worry line between Shiro’s brows. Keith's fingers itched to smooth it out.

"You haven't been this absent since— Oh." Shiro looked adorable, like a kicked puppy. "Why didn’t you say anything?"

Keith smiled ruefully and shrugged. Shiro's palm still covered his too-cold hands. Keith felt the warmth slowly seeping into him, the calluses on those big fingers catching on the soft skin of the back of Keith’s hand when Shiro shifted slightly. 

"It was a long time ago, and I’d rather spend the day with my friends."

Shiro checked his watch. "We can still make it."

"What?" 

But Shiro was already walking. For a man of his stature, he could move surprisingly fast. He grabbed Keith's hand while throwing a few crumpled bills on the table. He waved at the waiter and dragged Keith out. 

The air was crisp. Keith shuddered as the warmth from the diner slowly seeped out of his flesh. He chuckled slightly at Shiro’s antics, _but fuck was it cold_. Shiro stopped in front of his car and unlocked the doors. Ever the gentleman, he opened the door for Keith, who slid in with just the slightest of eye rolls, which earned him another smile.

"Where are we going," Keith asked after fastening his seat belt. 

Shiro answered again with a smile before he started the car and smoothly glided out of the parking spot. The streetlamps had already flickered on, their yellow light flashing over them as they drove through the streets. It was still early, so the road was packed. And yet, it felt as if they were alone. It was a feeling Keith always associated with Shiro. As if he stepped into its own universe, a universe called Takashi Shirogane.

After a few more turns, they stopped in front of an iron gate Keith knew quite well.

"Shiro?" He looked over. Shiro was smiling sheepishly. 

"I promised you, you will never have to go alone again. And I also know you’d never ask for it, so this is giving you a chance. It's your decision, what to do."

Keith exhaled and let the stress and tension drain from him. Shiro took this as a positive sign because his smile once again became more open.

"Okay." Keith unfastened the seat belt and climbed out of the car. He didn’t wait for Shiro but marched through the open gate, the little pathways, the trees, and the stone walkways until he stopped. His feet had taken the familiar route automatically.

Keith knelt down, brushing a few leaves to the side before his fingers traced the golden engraved letters. 

_Tex H. Kogane. Beloved father and comrade._

All of the things Tex. H. Kogane had been ended on the day Kolivan brought Keith the news, smelling like ash and with regret in his eyes. 

A moment frozen in forever. The setting sun, the grief in the older man's eyes, the rough hand in Keith’s hair. The silence of the room and the ticking of the kitchen clock. Keith couldn’t remember the exact words, only the growing sorrow and the onslaught of denial that had threatened to swallow him up. 

After that, life had not been outright cruel, but tough. The state had shuffled him from home to home, from family to family. Some of them had even cared, tried, but their faces were now blurry memories.

It went on until he’d turned eighteen and fought his way to college, freeing himself of the shackle of social conventions and the burden of any type of relationship. 

He’d resigned himself to keeping his head down and making his own way. That was until he crossed paths with Shiro.

The same Shiro who was now thrusting a bouquet into his line of sight. Keith blinked at it. It looked like a sunset, yellow and orange and red and pink mixed together. Their name was escaping him..

"They are called immortelle."

"They’re beautiful. When did you get them?" Keith took them with careful fingers before laying them gently on the grave.

Shiro scratched his neck. "Bought them before coming around."

"So, you perfectly knew what day it was," Keith pointed out with an eye roll.

"Guilty," Shiro chuckled. 

"You think he will like them?" Keith said, looking down at them.

"I'm sure." Shiro smiled.

Keith stood again, finding Shiro's left hand. He squeezed it, and Shiro answered in kind.

"Take me home?"

As an answer, Shiro entwined their fingers.

Their first kiss happened by accident, a brush of lips on lips in the dead of night, courage fueled by alcohol. It was everything Keith had ever wanted. The next kiss came on the wings of laughter and torrential rain, soaked through clothes and shivering coldness. Keith never quite remembered why they thought taking a shower together was a good idea, but they had. The second kiss under the hot stream of hammering water and clouded by steam became the third, and the fourth and the fifth and an endless number as lips glided over lips and hands found soft skin and sleek flesh. 

That day became the first night, became the second, became the third. Spilled into weeks. They fell into each other's orbit without premise, two pieces finally slotting together. 

And Keith felt happiness for the first time since the death of his father, but it was deeper and unbound. He found the stars of the night sky in Shiro's eyes, the embrace of galaxies in his arms, and the sonnets of old in the whisper of his name.

"Hey, Keith?"

He turned. Shiro was sitting on the bed, watching him. The sun bathed his muscles in a golden glow, leaving sharp shadows and deep lines. His gaze was steady and earnest.

"Yeah?"

"Adam asked me out for dinner." Shiro’s fingers fiddled with the hem of the blanket.

Keith thought back to the lanky and slightly nerdy TA colleague Shiro had introduced to him a few months back. Keith had not been sure what Shiro saw in the stern looking man, but his eyes had twinkled and there was something soft to Shiro’s smile when he talked about Adam. 

Shiro and Keith had talked about _it_ , when one of them would fall in love with someone else. That they would be honest with each other and end their arrangement.

Keith smiled, ignoring the roaring in his ears and the thundering beat of his heart. "And?"

"I said yes." Shiro blushed. His hands twined into each other to keep them still.

Keith walked over and took his hands into his own before he kissed him long and deep. (It tasted like goodbye.)

"I'm happy for you."

"Yeah?" 

There was a new glow in Shiro’s eyes. Keith could count the stars in them. 

"Yeah."

No one was to blame for what came after. First, it was Shiro. He came later to their small gatherings and left earlier, occupied first with exams and his budding relationship, then with graduating and finding a job. Then Hunk, who changed track and went for a culinary school on the other side of the country. Lance moved with him, getting accepted into his top choice med school. Allura followed because she had fallen in love. Last it was Matt, his work as an engineer taking him all over the world, and where Matt went Lotor followed. So it was no surprise to Keith that he found himself alone in the diner at their usual time. The waitress’ smile was sympathetic, but he just shrugged as an answer, finished his milkshake and fries, and watched the people outside.

He sent Matt a lonely pic from the empty seats around him and put a heart, and a "Wish you were here!" in glitter letters on it. He received two replies at the same time. Lotor was telling him off for flirting with his fiance, and Matt told him he should just ignore anything Lotor wrote. Lotor got a smirk as reply and Matt a tongue-out-smiley.

Later, much later, when Keith was alone in his apartment and the night had doused it inky blackness, he received another message from Matt.

"I'm here if you need to talk."

The words followed him out into the desert, to the little shack his father had left Keith. They haunted him on the days he looked at his wrist and traced the growing vines with a kind of disassociation. An arm he didn’t register as his, the flesh where black veins with tiny thorns and small buds slowly crept along. This wasn’t his body that was slowly preparing to die. 

Keith had known what a soulmark was from the day he was capable of understanding something if it was explained to him. A black dot in the middle of your inner right wrist, that was a soulmark. The seed that bore the wrath of the gods if you didn’t connect to your soul partner, or at least that was the folk tale.

The wrath—people called it Hanahaki— could appear on anyone. But a rejected soulmark would always and forever create trapping thorns and deadly flowers.

So when Keith saw the small black seed on his father’s wrist, he had asked. His father had explained, about Keith’s mother, and how while she loved them both dearly, she wasn’t able to be with them. The seed had proven it, still intact, a dark spot on the wrist. Their love had never blossomed, but was also never rejected. Their time had been too short, but the seed, the possibility, had stayed.

That same night, tucked in his bed, the room checked for monsters hiding in the shadows, Keith had recounted the story of his parents. His renditions had sounded more and more fantastic. Keith had sworn to have the same type of love one day: devoted, all-encompassing. Either with a mark or without.

A year later, the soulmark had formed on his wrist. Keith had been ecstatic. Now he could have a friend, a person just for him, curbing the loneliness that already grabbed after his heart. For years, Keith looked and searched and waited and looked some more. But he’d never found someone who fit his mark, which would make it bud and bear the soul-flower.

When he’d turned fourteen and Kolivan had brought the news of ash and fire and death, Keith had already hidden his mark under gloves and long sleeves, never turning his hand up. He had given up on the dream of a naive child in the safety of his own bedroom.

The day Keith met Shiro, he believed in the mark on his wrist again.

Shiro was. That's it. He just _was_. Larger than everything Keith had ever experienced. Nothing compared to him.

Not a thing.

Nothing.

But Shiro would never know. 

Watching the lightning storms gather over the desert, the lighting covering the landscape in flickering lights and eerie silence, Keith smoked at the open window. He asked himself how to fall out of love.

Shiro had asked him to help him move in with Adam, following Adam's work to another city. Keith knew Matt and Lotor would be there and maybe also Hunk, but for the first time in his life, at least the part of his life that revolved around Shiro, Keith had declined. He hadn’t bothered to find a flimsy excuse, but in his usual short manner, had excused himself. Shiro's reaction had been an onslaught of sad smileys, but he had not pressed. 

Shiro never pressed. 

Then and there, Keith had desperately wished that he had. 

Keith allowed himself to grieve the life they would never have, the things they would never feel together, the body he would never feel under him again. The kisses he would never taste again.

And that gaze from those gray eyes, that encompassed his entire being and just hugged him.

Keith let it go. He screamed his pain into the thunderstorms bursting over the desert, he whispered it to the stars when midnight was long past and the sun not quite there, he told it to the wind, rattling at his windows like a friend searching for him.

He found calmness in his exile. And in the solace of the still nights full of starlight, he found his own peace.

Keith began to heal.

So, when the knock came, Keith had already made himself a new home in the desert, in the shack his father had left him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Open lock whoever knocks ... Continues in: The thorns etched in flesh and bones


	2. The thorns etched in flesh and bone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is love? How do we feel love? And how far can we go for love?

Time had walked the Earth before the knock came months later. When Keith opened the door, he saw Shiro. When he blinked, Shiro morphed into someone a bit short, smaller, with different hair and a different smile. Crooked, slightly on the loped side, and unbelievably sad. As the sun broke at Matt's back, he appeared like a ghost. A kindred soul.

"Hi, Keith." Matt’s voice was devoid of emotion, the smile frozen in a mask.

"What are you doing here?" Something wasn’t alright. Was it Shiro?

"I- can I come in?" There was tiredness around him, endless and encompassing. Matt looked broken. Deeply broken. Instead of answering, Keith stepped back, leaving the door open. He stepped into the living room and turned. 

Matt blinked in the semi-darkness after the brightness of the sun. He licked his lips. Keith could see his hands tremble and noticed something hadn’t not seen before: a scar where Matt’s soul mark should be, above the shadow of a flower. 

"Oh." Keith said on an exhale. The sound winding around the other, making Matt tremble and shiver and sob and cry all at once. Keith was moving before he even thought about it, pressing against Matt’s cold body, his clammy skin, and all of his delicate, breaking pieces. Matt's sobs were the only sound for a very long time.

Later, so much later, when the sunlight had faded, giving away to the night, they lay together on the too-small bed in Keith’s bedroom. 

“Why come to me?” 

Matt was silent for so long that Keith thought he had fallen asleep. When the reply came, it was scratchy.

“Because you would understand.”

Shiro’s message came in the early hours of the new dawn.

“Heard from Matt?” 

“He’s here.”

“Let me know if you need anything.” 

You. The thought came unbidden and so fast that Keith let the phone drop down as if it was on fire. It clattered to the floor. Matt murmured but didn’t wake. 

Keith watched the rise and fall of Matt’s chest the tiny twitch of his nose and the flutter of the eyelids. His right hand twitched from time to time. Keith let his eyes drift to the shadow flower. The colors and pattern had seeped out, the lines had lightened, what remained was an outline like a faint scar. Over the years, it would disappear, like the memories of the person he’d loved. Some people found happiness again, but others… Keith rolled his shoulders back and got up. He was careful not to jostle the bed too much.

He closed the bathroom door with a click and turned the lock. For a moment, he breathed into the space and tried to understand what had happened. Lotor was gone. And while they had not been particularly close, they had still laughed together, teased each other.

Keith turned on the shower, and under the steaming stream, he allowed the water to wash his tears away.

The mirror showed him tired and red-rimmed eyes. He checked his veins, which had grown further again, and reapplied the cover up he had washed away in the shower. If Matt saw them, he would latch onto Keith’s problems and not deal with his own. 

Keith gripped the sink, and sudden rage flooded him. He was out of the bathroom door and grabbing his phone before he made his way downstairs. Shiro took the call on the first ring.

“Why did nobody tell me?” Keith asked instead of a greeting.

“Hello, Keith, and well, everything happened so fast. The funeral was yesterday.”

“WHY THE FUCK DID NOBODY TELL ME?”

There was a beat of silence, then, “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you.”

“Keith—”

He ended the call.

“What’s got you so riled up in the morning?” 

Keith turned and found Matt leaning against the door frame, legs and arms crossed. He looked dreadful. Matt tried for nonchalance, but his mouth was grim, his eyes puffy, and the grip on his arms left his knuckles white. Poised to crack at any moment. 

“I—” Keith shook his head. “Nothing, coffee?”

He wasn’t equipped for dealing with emotional trauma. Hell, he barely had his own under control. But Matt just nodded.

They sat down on the porch. Matt was still and silent and not himself. A state of being Keith had never associated with Matt drawn into himself, pale, a slight trembling to his hands. How was he supposed to recover from something like this? How could Keith help him recover?

“What will you do now?” Keith said.

Matt flinched. Maybe it was that he’d been spoken to, or the remainder of more decisions that needed to be made. Matt would inherit Lotor’s estate. They had been matched soulmates; the laws were pretty ironclad. If Matt wanted, he would never have to work again. 

Matt only shrugged and closed his hands around the coffee mug. Keith sighed.

“What about work?”

Matt shrugged again.

“Matt!” 

“What?!” Matt shouted. “The fuck, leave me alone, I’m on leave. Just…” He stood and was gone into the house. 

Keith scrubbed over his face. He wasn’t sure if he should wait or go after him.

Why had Matt come to him?

Keith lit a cigarette. He'd go after Matt once he'd had a smoke.

He walked down the stairs and sat down, letting his thoughts flow. The will to write itched in his brain and fingers. 

But not yet.

The soft patter of feet made him turn. Matt looked small and quiet and broken.

“I’m sorry,” Keith said.

“I know.”

“What will you do?” Keith took another drag from his cigarette. They both watched the smoke curl in the air and dissipate.

“Learn to breathe again.”

Their life fell together from one day to another. Matt moved in without as much as a word. Pidge helped him move. She had a suspicious glint in her eyes and a frown around her lips. She was the mirror image of her brother, with big glasses and the same sandy-blond hair.

Maybe she thought Keith was a gold digger or taking advantage in another way, and perhaps she was right. Having someone around soothed Keith. It felt like putting a band-aid on a festering wound. For the moment, it helped. 

What came after felt natural, on the tail ends of another hot night, the sweltering heat only slightly broken by a soft breeze through the windows. It started with the brush of arms and a soft exhale, and Matt’s laughter, lonely and sad. 

They moved together without thinking about it, again and again, finding not each other at the height of the climax but different names.

From time to time, Pidge would come around and sit with her brother. They would talk about work and research and how to change the world, but never about Lotor. Keith would serve them lemonade, endure for a moment her far-too-questioning gaze, and walk the desert until she left again.

* * *

The first time Matt found a lone dried flower petal, it wasn’t much to him. Even smack in the middle of the desert, flowers bloomed. A dried flower was nothing suspicious, even when a second or third joined, even when leaves turned up where none had been before.

They kept coming, a whole week full of dried petals. Some were even fresh. At the start of the second week of finding the bed beside him empty and cold, and yet another petal crackled between his fingertips, he had an epiphany.

Matt rolled out of the bed, finding Keith bowed over his laptop, typing away. His office, if you could call it, was an extension of the bedroom, with a very long desk along the window to his back was the wall from the bathroom. Keith looked up when Matt came to a stop beside him. First, Keith smiled, then he furrowed his brows after he saw the face Matt was making. His gaze drifted lower, to the crushed petal in his hand.

Well, they were not really petals, but dried and withered skin. They looked and felt like the real deal, but they were a sign of something severe. 

Keith sighed and shoved himself away from the desk, walking around Matt.

“Keith!” Matt shouted. 

“I need a smoke for this conversation,” Keith said and walked down the stairs to the porch, tapping one cigarette out from the pack on the table, before putting it between his lips and lighting it in a smooth movement Matt could only admire. 

Keith leaned back against the wooden column, taking a few deep drags before focusing on Matt. Something lurked in his eyes, something wild. “Ask.”

Questions rose and fell in Matt’s mind. Some of them were private, most of them scientific. But there was only one question that sprung to his mind the instant he’d understood what the petals meant.

“Is it because of Shiro?”

Keith exhaled a bit too much at that, his mouth became a bit too thin, but there was a smile lurking in his eyes, a fond expression. Love.

“Yeah. Well, at least I think so.” Keith rolled his shoulders back in a half shrug. He pressed his cigarette out and lit the next one. Matt wanted to say something about health and death, but then he felt the petals in his hands and knew it would be futile. 

“Since when?”

Keith looked away, as he always did when he didn’t want to tell the whole truth. “A few years.”

“Keith,” Matt said carefully, before sitting down on the little bench. 

Keith sighed, defeated. “There’s no specific date. It just happened. One day they grew, and they never stopped.”

“Why not tell him?” Matt angled for calm, even if his insides churned and burned. 

“He’s happy, Matt.” 

And what could he say to that? Anything suggested would make him sound like a jerk. He cared for Shiro and for Keith, but he didn’t care for this mess at all. 

Matt looked at Keith’s bare arms instead. They didn’t look different. Keith shifted. There was a shadow, a part of his skin that appeared different. “How did you hide it?” Matt said.

“Cover-up makeup.” Keith smiled sheepishly. 

Matt exhaled slowly. “Can I see it?”

Keith looked down at his arms. He furrowed his brows. Matt waited. He wasn’t sure what demon Keith was chasing at this moment; he couldn’t even pretend to understand how it felt to be rejected. He had been lucky, Lotor had proclaimed his feelings to the world. His own hand drifted to the flower scar, fading a bit more with every day that passed. 

“Yeah.”

Matt waited outside. The day was blistering hot. His eyes fell onto the cigarettes, and he was tempted. Very much. His fingers drifted over when Keith made his presence known again by clearing of his throat. He still looked unsure. Keith had drawn his right arm against his stomach, held and shielded by the left one. His shoulders were curled inward like he wanted to protect himself. Matt held out his hand. It was on Keith to take it or leave it.

Another internal battle ranged inside him. Matt could see it at a slight crease between the brows and the downturn of his mouth. But Keith came. 

Matt took his arm with the utmost care. The skin was slightly pink from scrubbing it, but the veins were not to be missed. They took up half of the underarm, swirling in random patterns. Small thorns had developed, together with leaves and flower buds.

Matt traced them with his fingertips. There was a hitch in Keith’s breath. In fear of having hurt him, Matt snatched his hand away and looked up. But Keith didn’t appear to be in pain. He didn’t even appear to really be there. 

“What do the flowers stand for?” Matt said. Everyone received their own flowers, like the soul-flower, they represented the love the person made them feel. And while for a matched pair the feelings were mutual, the rejected could feel a myriad of things. 

“Yellow zinnias and forget-me-nots,” Keith answered mechanically.

“What do they stand for?” Matt pressed.

But Keith remained silent. Matt sighed and let his gaze drift to Keith’s wrist, finding something he had hoped not to see: a broken seed.

“Oh,” he said, and Keith snatched his arm away. A shadow passed over his face, fast and hard, and desolate. It took Matt’s breath away with its unprecedented rawness. And just like that, it was gone again, and there was Keith, a small and lazy smile on his lips, sad and soft eyes watching him.

“I’m—”

But fingertips were pressed to Matt’s lips; they tasted like nicotine and ash.

“Don’t,” Keith said and bowed down to kiss him deeply.

And Matt understood.

It was late when he looked it up. Keith was already sleeping beside him, curled around himself, still protecting against what lay in his heart and grew along his arm. 

Flower meanings were easily found. There were thousands of scientific papers.

Matt blinked at the words on his phone screen, blinked and blinked, but the meaning never changed, the words never formed into different ones. Yellow zinnia stood for daily remembrance and the forget-me-nots for memories, and above all: true love.

“Oh,” he whispered again. Matt scrolled through his phone and hovered over Shiro’s contact. It would cost just a press of his thumb to either call him or leave him a message. Only one small press, not much pressure, was even needed. 

Matt exhaled. 

Shiro was happy.

Matt swallowed and let his phone sink, turning the screen off.

_ Shiro was happy. _

And that was all that mattered to Keith.

All that mattered.

* * *

Pidge arrived on the verge of a thunderstorm three days later. There was electricity in the air, a contained power on the edge of breaking loose. Darkness was gathering over the desert, blotting out the sun. Pidge came to a stop next to the bench where Keith was lying down, one arm behind his head, the other holding a novel. She stood and blinked, pushing back her glasses, her eyes slightly owlish behind them. Keith knew where she was looking, what she was looking at. 

“Can I help you?”

Keith could see tendrils of pity clouding Pidge’s eyes, but she held his gaze.

“I’m sorry.”

“What exactly for?” Keith was tired. The book was dragging, and the heat made him sleepy. He didn’t want to deal with people today. Why hadn’t Matt told him that his sister was coming, or had he?

Pidge crossed her arms. “I thought you were taking advantage of Matt.”

“What makes you think I don’t?” He thought about the nights they spent in each other's arms, different names in their minds and on their lips.

“He came to you.” Pidge’s tone implied she was merely stating a fact. She still watched him. Keith wasn’t sure what she saw, what anybody saw, what—He sighed and let go of those thoughts. 

“He did.” Keith got up and put his feet on the ground again. The wood was warm, nearly hot. He closed the book and laid it on the table beside him before grabbing the pack of cigarettes. Keith saw Pidge’s eyes tracing the vines and thorns. He had not covered them up again. She had the same spark of scientific curiosity in her eyes that Matt had. 

“What do you want from him?”

Keith lit the cigarette and took a deep drag. He exhaled the smoke to the side. He wanted nothing. Not really. But Matt helped.

“Same as him.” A warm body, someone to share the desolate feeling of the night, a dreamscape of broken pieces that passed for the reality they live in.

She furrowed her brows. “But—”

“Pidge, you ready?” Matt’s voice cut off whatever she had wanted to say. Keith looked over. Matt looked sharp. The slacks and button-down fit him perfectly. Keith wanted to mess him up. Instead, he took another drag and smiled.

“You go and have fun.”

“You’ill be alright?” Matt’s gaze traced him, gentle as if it were his fingertips.

“As good as I can be,” Keith said with a shrug.

“Keith.”

“Go,” Keith said with an amused smile. Matt stood a moment longer, helplessly watching him.

“Okay,” he said at last, and together with Pidge, he walked down the small patio steps onto the pathway. Keith watched them walk in the golden sunlight.

He kept standing until Pidge’s car was only a small dot on the horizon. He touched the crumpled letter in his back pocket. Words in a neat script were written on it. When he’d held it in his hand the first time, early in the morning light, he had done it with trembling fingers. A tiny spark of hope had settled where his heart should have been. 

But as Keith turned it around and found the return address for both Shiro and Adam, he had known what this letter contained. His suspicion was confirmed when he saw a similar envelope addressed to Matt.

Keith walked around the house to the fire pit Matt had built in the summer. He laid the letter down, and with the tip of another glimmering cigarette he didn’t remember lighting, he set fire to it. He fancied himself feeling how the veins crept even higher, the thorns stretching toward his heart, hungry for it.

An outdoor wedding, Matt had told him. He’d asked Keith late into the night, the darkness already enveloping him, if he wanted to come. Keith had wanted to do many things at that moment: scream, scoff, smirk, cry, laugh. But he had settled on a simple “No.”

He watched the ash drift in the wind.

Maybe he could now finally accept that Shiro’s love was not meant for him.

He looked into the sky and wished Matt were with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What will the ending bring? Find out in: The flower of goodbye


	3. The flower of goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where all the pieces come together...

The tidal wave of change came on a Sunday evening.

“Matt?” Keith’s voice shook. He grabbed Matt's wrist before the other could turn away. He blinked at it, still not sure he saw correctly, Matt saw that Keith was willing his mind to understand. Keith’s eyes traced over and over again, the dark lines he saw on Matt’s arm. 

“But how?”

How. How, he asked. Matt freed his arm and cradled it against his chest. He was tired, exhausted even. Keith still blinked at him. He’d have to come to the same conclusion Matt had when he’d found the first thorns poking out. 

Matt had a front-row seat when Keith finally, oh finally, got it. Pain and fear mingled with hurt and heartbreak. Heartbreak was so profound that it hurt Matt right back, down to his very core, vibrating along his nerves, building up in his brain.

“Oh,” was all Keith said before he ran.

Matt waited.

It took Keith nearly two days to return. Dirty and windswept, sunburn on his nose and cheeks, but there was a crazy note in his eyes, a determination that had no right to be there. Because it didn’t work that way. You couldn’t make yourself fall in love with someone, not deep enough to halt the growing thorns on Matt’s wrist.

“I’m sorry,” Keith said in the silence between them when he had opened the door to the shack and found Matt in the kitchen, waiting. Matt just shrugged. It was no one's fault.

The next day Pidge arrived. She looked at Matt sitting outside at the table drinking coffee, and just shook her head. Matt read sadness and resignation in her gaze. He offered her an apologetic smile. She shook her head again and plopped herself down on the bench next to the table. 

Keith wasn’t sure what he should make out of the situation. He would have talked to Matt about it, or in the past, Shiro. Neither was an option now. He watched Matt and Pidge talking in hushed tones outside. He had opened a window for a smoke before returning to his work again. Pidge had been by every day that week, staying until the light faded. She was probably using her brother as a guinea pig. Keith traced his own thorns. They were still growing. He sighed. Why couldn’t he have fallen in love with Matt? Why was his heart set on the one man he couldn’t obtain? He put out the cigarette and scrubbed a hand over his face. Something needed to give and soon.

It was late, when Keith walked upstairs, ready to fall into their bed. In the pale moonlight, streaming in thick stripes through the open window, he found Matt looking at his own arm, his eyes tracing the delicate pattern over and over again. It was still small, growing directly out of the scar that had been his soul mark. Three tiny veins, with baby thorns and one little flower bud. Keith wondered what kind of flower Matt would sprout, what kind of love he felt for Keith, which he had rejected with his feelings for Shiro. 

A small part of him wondered what Lotor would think. Not that this would have happened if Lotor was still with them, but still, would he be happy that Matt had found a new love, or would he be sad that another would end in disaster? Keith’s own veins had not stopped growing. There had been a time when Keith had thought maybe, just maybe, they'd slowed down, but he'd been mistaken. The next day, he found a new dead flower and newly grown thorns.

Matt shifted against him. The night was warm, so they didn’t need a blanket. Even the skin-to-skin contact was nearly too much, but they endured for both their sakes. 

Keith’s eyes found his own arm, glittering in the pale moonlight. The soul mark was awash with the colours of the rainbow. Science had no explanation for why they did that. Matt’s was only slightly shimmering, but Keith’s was like a beacon.

“Sleep,” Keith murmured. Matt let his arm sink and looked over, his eyes nearly black in the contrast of the moon light. There was a wildness in them, a craziness Keith couldn’t understand. For a terrifying second, he thought Matt would kill him, end Keith’s and his own misery, do them both a favor. 

But the moment passed, like a cloud over the brilliant moon, and Matt smiled.

“Yeah,” was all he said before closing his eyes and shifting a bit closer. Not before long, the body next to him relaxed, and Matt’s breath evened out. Keith kept watching until the moon sank, and the sun rose. Sleep never came.

After a week of sleeplessness, feeling Matt’s eyes on him always clouded with worry and fear, he finally gave in.

“Let’s travel.” He said it over their morning coffee. The sun had already risen, the refrigerator hummed and stilled with a short gurgle. Matt looked at him, surprised. He set his mug down (one splash of milk, two sugars) and gave Keith his undivided attention.

“Where to?”

Keith shrugged at that. He wasn’t sure, hadn’t thought far enough, just away. Not here. Keith had spoken in the spur of the moment, as he watched the golden sun rays shift over Matt’s hair, touching each strand individually, like golden spun hay. He wanted to see it in another setting, wanted to see him laugh, put that sparkle back in his eyes. The one Lotor had given him, the one Keith denied him.

“Somewhere,” Keith said instead, and Matt nodded.

The rest was easy. Matt brought tickets in the afternoon. Keith’s raised eyebrow was met with a shrug. Keith had asked, and Matt had answered. There was nothing more to it. 

They closed up the shack. Pidge would keep a watchful eye on it. They packed the most important stuff and left messages for their friends. 

“Where are you headed?” Shiro had asked. His voice was small on the phone.

“Wherever we like,” Keith had answered.

“When will you return?”

“Whenever we want.”

There was a long pause after that, someone shifted around, a body moving, a too-long exhale.

“Keith—” A swallow. “I see. Don’t be a stranger.”

“Yeah.” And Keith had ended the call.

* * *

They walked the Earth. Through cityscapes and jungles, along the ocean and endless mountains, caves and ruins, plains, and deserts. 

In the second country, Keith’s underarm was completely covered. He woke in the night, a scream on his lips. But Keith just set his jaw tight and rode wave after wave of pain in Matt’s arms.

The fifth brought for Matt the first blooming flower, a Viscaria, huge and beautiful. 

Keith smiled at him and gathered Matt in his arms, and together they danced to the music that was drifting up to their room from the street corner, a soulful violin weaving through the oncoming dusk.

The seventh country found Keith with a full outer shell on his upper arm and more dead flowers.

In the ninth country, Matt’s second flower bloomed, a pink camellia. Keith watched him with big, sad eyes as he felt his own thorns crawling. He knew the next morning they would have grown again. He had hoped that, maybe, they could escape this. 

The twelfth completed Keith’s arm. He sat in stony silence, a fine tremor shivering along his spine every few minutes. Matt’s face was etched with worry while he held him, deep lines Keith had a hard time smoothing away.

In the twenty-fifth, Keith started coughing. Just here and there, days apart. With every passing week, it grew faster and faster, until heavy coughs wrecked his thinning frame. 

It was there that Matt looked at him, taking him in: the dark smudges under the eyes from lack of sleep and growing nightmares, the deeply carved lines in his face, and the slight dullness in his very being from deep-rooted exhaustion.

It was there, sitting under stars, swaying in a swing on the porch of the house they had rented. With every passing swing, there was a slight creak. Back and forth and creak. The wind was a soft breeze. Insects buzzed around a few torches in the garden spilling before them. It was here Matt said the words, “It’s time to go home.”

Keith, under a heavy blanket, curled into Matt’s side, fell into himself and nodded.

They returned a week later. Not to the shack, their home. There was no need anymore. 

* * *

  
  


“This is a surprise.” Lance looked at them both, as they sat in his office, waiting for the admission through a doctor, who would ascertain the level of care needed. He raised an eyebrow as he settled into his chair, putting his hands together, watching them for a moment. “I thought you were traveling around the world? What can I do for you?”

“I didn’t know you’d taken residence here,” Matt said in a cautious tone.

Lance shrugged. “It was a year ago. I think you went off the grid for a while, and when you returned, it was old news by then.”

“I see.”

There was another bout of silence, disturbed by heavy coughing. Lance’s eyes snapped directly to Keith, before wandering back to Matt.

“Why are you here, Matt?” Lance was unblinking. “You know what kind of facility this is.” 

“I—” 

But Keith laid a hand on Matt’s arm, cutting him off. He struggled out of his jacket, his movements slow. When his arm lay bare between them, Lance sucked in a breath.

“Fuck.” He scrubbed a hand over his face.

“How long?” Keith asked.

Lance sighed. “Not sure. Not long. Everybody has their own time table. But in this state, with that cough, not long.” He suddenly looked so much older. “Can I—”

Keith blinked at him but nodded. Lance's fingers were gentle. He slowly twisted and turned Keith’s arm around, tracing every inch of it.

“Why?” Lance looked so lost and sad, Matt needed to look away.

“Because he’s happy.”

Matt did everything to suppress the snort that wanted to escape him, or was it even hysterical laughter? Maybe a mixture of both. 

“I’ll get you a room and everything you might need.”

“Lance?”

“Yes.” There was dread in Lance’s voice.

“Don’t tell the others.” Keith’s eyes were huge and pleading.

“I— shit, okay I won’t tell the others.”

Deep in the night, when Keith was asleep with the help of an oxygen mask and some sedatives so that he finally rested, Lance found Matt in the small chapel in the center of the hospital complex. The light was pouring through the stained glass window, painting a kaleidoscope on the floor. Matt wanted to flip it off and everything that was associated with it. Fuck the gods. Fuck hanahaki. He scratched his own arm.

The wood beside him creaked when Lance sat down.

“You believe in them?”

“Not anymore,” Matt bit out.

Lance looked over and then down at Matt’s wrist. Matt could see when the realization hit.

“Shit.”

Matt laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, that sums it up quite nicely.”

“So, it’s Shiro?”

“It always has been,” Matt said, not without some bitterness.

"Did you try to contact Shiro? Tell him about it?"

Matt sighed. "You know the laws, Keith didn't wish it."

“Soulmark?” There was faint curiosity in Lance’s voice—the doctor, the researcher speaking. 

Matt shrugged. “Keith’s is broken. Shiro never knew if he had one.” He sighed. “Why did he never feel anything?”

Lance looked out the window. “Soulbonds and soul marks are quite complicated.”

“It was easy with Lotor.”

Lance smiled. “Yeah, you were one of the lucky ones. The movies, and books, and advertisements for the matchmaking services want to make you believe it’s easy and wonderful and all the soulmates are destined to find their bond partner and live happily ever after.” 

Matt snorted. 

Lance chuckled ruefully. “But you were happy; don’t deny it.”

Matt sighed, his skin crawling as always when he talked about his dead fiance. “Yeah, I fucking was.”

“Sometimes the timing isn’t right, for whatever reason. Sometimes partners never meet, or keep missing each other. Sometimes they only meet once and never see each other again. And sometimes they don’t decide to pursue things for whatever reason. People are complicated, and emotions can be even more so.”

“Is this my punishment?”

“Keith would say it’s your salvation. You know what will happen when he dies.”

Matt leaned back against the pew, the top digging uncomfortably in his neck. His eyes found the stucco ceiling. He traced it with his eyes, for a moment lost in thought, in his own world. But Lance’s words never left, echoing again and again in his skull, back and forth, back and forth.

Lance was gone before he answered. 

“Yeah, I know.”

That night Matt cried; it was the only time he dared.

* * *

Sometimes Shiro dreamed about the desert. Golden and red, with brown and sandstone. It would be hot and endless, full of pebbles and coarse sand. A blue sky that shifted like a chameleon until the darkness spread over the land, and only the glittering stars remained. In those dreams, sparse as they were, he never walked the desert alone. 

Black and big, a lion would walk at his side. Silent. His feet would take him through valleys, along man-high cacti and dry underbrush. He would meet Lance sometimes, and Allura, seldom Hunk or Matt and Pidge. And then at times he could count at one hand, he would find a lone figure sitting on a cliff watching the sunset. Always the sunset.

When he was only five feet away, the figure would turn his head. Blue eyes with a tint of purple in the setting sun would meet Shiro's, and a smile would spread along his beautiful face.

Keith.

Every time the realization hit him, Shiro would wake. 

He would stay awake with a sense of guilt and a faint longing. Sometimes. When he was alone in the darkness of their home, drinking a glass of water in the silent kitchen, he would allow himself the thought: what could have been?

He would look at his phone, willing it to light up, to see a similar number calling. But it remained mute and he would grieve, while his heart hurt.

When Matt told him that he was now living with Keith, jealousy had reared its head. But Shiro had no right to be jealous. He had Adam, didn’t he?

Soft footsteps sounded. Usually, Adam slept right through Shiro’s dreams, used to him being awake at odd hours of the day. 

“Bad dream?” Adam’s hair was sleep tousled, his eyes small. Exhaustion screamed out of every line of his body. 

“Yeah, something like that. Go back to bed. ‘ll read in the living room.” Shiro smiled, but Adam was just watching him, searching for something. “Adam?” 

His husband swallowed and moved his gaze to the side, focusing on a point far away. He licked his lips. All so uncharacteristic for him. He was never nervous, never avoided.

“I— no. We got a letter.”

“A letter?” It felt a stupid question to ask, but what was Adam talking about, and why was he so shifty?

Adam sighed. He walked through the kitchen to the living room and opened a cabinet. He returned, with a letter in his hands. It looked normal, ordinary even. The color was standard, the size was standard. Adam looked at the letter, looked at Shiro, and set it down on the table, the small one they always used in the mornings, drinking their coffee and going through the plans and things that needed to be taken care of. The same one where they kissed goodbye.

Adam looked at the letter as if it was threatening their entire life. 

Keith. 

The name came unbidden and instantly. Shiro swallowed.

“Who’s it from?”

Adam still stared at it. “Matt.”

“When did it arrive?” 

There was a tiny flinch in Adam’s posture. 

“Adam?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“What?” Shiro blinked.

“You know, sometimes I dream. I dream of a world free of flowers that grow on skin, and thorns and veins, of pesky little things they call soul marks.” Adam paused. “It’s a dream that always leaves me feeling guilty and with regret. Because on some level, I have known, and I never said anything.” Adam chuckled; it grated on Shiro’s ears. “And so I dream of a world where all those things don’t matter.”

“I don’t understand.”

Adam raised his head. He looked sad and lonely and closed off. “Read the letter, Shiro.” He left before Shiro could say anything else. He could hear him go up the stairs, the last one creaked, could to him upstairs, walking slowly, with care. The closing of a door. The steps grew more silent until the bed creaked as well. And still, Shiro waited.

A lost feeling grew in his stomach, a suspicion, a very desolate one.

After another minute, Shiro stepped closer. His fingertips traced the jagged line where Adam had opened the letter two weeks ago. Shiro saw his name on the envelope, only his. 

He swallowed and opened it.

* * *

“Hi,” Keith said in a small voice. Matt blinked at him, sitting up in his chair. The beeping of the machines around them was loud in the silence, an echo of things passing and time still ticking. Matt wanted to say so much more, but he just held Keith’s hand.

“How are you feeling?”

Keith smiled. “Breathing is becoming hard.” He inhaled. “Tired.” He paused again, gathering his thoughts. He looked at Matt, but he wasn’t seeing him, looked beyond to whatever memory had captured him. “You know, when I die, you’ll be free.”

Matt knew that; he fucking knew that. “Don’t say that.” he choked. “I just—” He broke. “Why can’t you just stop, why can’t you just stop loving him?” 

The touch of Keith’s fingers was light on his arm. 

“I’m sorry,” Keith exhaled. “He is everything. He gave me everything. Then, all those years ago, a purpose. Without him…” He tapered out.

“But I’m here now. I’m here, not him, and still you hold onto him.” Matt’s voice trembled.

Keith smiled, that soft smile of his. “Did you stop loving Lotor?”

“I—”

“Will you stop loving me?”

“I— no.” Matt bowed his head, curling over their entwined hands. “Never.”

“There’s a bond connecting me to him. Maybe it’s the soulbound and maybe not. But when I look at him, I feel like the universe looks back at me, and all I can do is fall into it.”

“It was,” Matt’s voice was rough, his fingers tightening. “It was the same. An endless ocean, deep and full of life, and I’m weightless.” Matt had no tears anymore; he had shed them all in the night before, had sworn to himself that they were the last ones. But they came, silent and glittering. 

Keith reached up, wiping them away, tugging Matt’s head down onto his chest, comforting him with whispered words of sweetness and nothingness. And Matt surrendered.

“I don’t want to be free,” Matt whispered over and over again.

It was much later that Keith whispered, “Even if it’s not enough, I do love you, Matthew Holt.”

Matt chuckled. “You tired?” 

Keith nodded and closed his eyes. 

“Then sleep, sweet boy. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Keith only smiled.

Matt stood up and put the oyxgen mask over Keith’s mouth and nose, ensuring he got enough oxygen in the night. He tucked the blanket around him, frowning slightly at Keith’s cold and clammy skin. Lance had assured Matt that it was normal. At this stage, all they could do was to ease the pain and make Keith as comfortable as possible. 

* * *

The letter was all Matt. Short, to the point, devastating. Still, Shiro found unexpected words, like _love_ and _you_ and _thorns_ and _vines_ and _flowers_ and a last one: _soul mark_.

The words started to run. It took Shiro a moment to realize that he was crying, that his tears made the smudges. He put the letter away hastily, rescuing the words that still churned through him. He broke down trembling and sobbing, not quite understanding why it hurt so much, why it was so hard to breathe. Shiro cradled his right arm, the metal one, curling it around himself like it was holding all the secrets of the world.

The sun slowly shifted outside.

* * *

Adam had told Shiro the truth; he dreamt of a world where all those things like soul marks and veins that crushed the life out of you didn’t matter, because then he might have been happy.

He had never really known. He had suspected the feelings between Keith and his husband. But Shiro had chosen him. That should count for something, shouldn’t it?

But about the soul mark?

Adam could hear the sobs coming from below. How long ago had the letter arrived? What day had it been? Adam traced the golden glint of his wedding band, slightly scratched from years of wear, a bit dull at the edges but shiny on the inside. 

The letter said things were urgent and time was running out. How long did someone have in the final stages of hanahaki? Could Keith even be saved anymore?

Adam’s ears pricked as there was only silence. He felt them both breathe in the same space, like the walls of the house, caving in and out, with every inhale and exhale they both took. Who would make the first step?

Adam closed his eyes as the soft word drifted through the space. “Adam.”

* * *

Keith’s eyes blinked open again. His smile was soft and radiant. It hurt. “How long was I asleep?”

Matt swallowed. “A day.” So long, that I feared you would never wake up again.

“Oh.” Keith blinked again, slowly, processing that. 

Lance had been in a few hours ago; his face had been grave. The first thorn had pricked the heart. The remaining flowers were on the verge of dying, and the last bud had already formed.

“You don’t have to be here.” 

Matt looked at Keith. The soaked hair, the gaunt face, the sunken cheeks. The small eyes and the dark smudges under them. He looked beautiful. “Do you want to be alone?” It took everything in him not to say “die alone.” It felt like conjuring a ghost Matt wasn’t yet willing to face.

That would happen soon enough.

“No.” Keith cradled the lion closer, one Matt had bought him in the gift store below. It was dark and red. Keith’s eyes had glowed when he brought it. Matt sighed and put his hands over Keith’s, those eyes slowly blinking at him. Soon, soon they would drop closed, and Keith would be asleep again.

Sleeping Beauty encompassed by walls and walls of thorns and roses.

“Hi.” The voice was raspy and small, the breath riddled with rattles and coughs. Matt bowed forward over the bed and removed the mask, allowing Keith to speak. He had gotten too weak to do it himself. He curled around his lion, pressing it close to his heart, where the flower had started to bloom. “I dreamed of flying in a lion and fighting space aliens.”

Matt smiled, stroking with his thumb the small and too white hand. “Was it squishy on the inside?”

“No, silly.” Keith’s closed his eyes again, smiling. “Pidge was there, and Shiro, and you.”

“Me, fighting in a robot?”

“No, as a rebel.” And then he was asleep again.

Pidge had been here a few days ago, watching Keith sleep, while Matt had made some arrangements. Arrangements he never had wished to make a second time in his life. 

She had brought him his phone; he had all but forgotten about it. He found a single message on it and dozens of missed calls, all from the same number.

The answer to his letter. 

“Hi.” This time it was Matt saying it. He laid his hand on a too-warm cheek, small eyes watching him.

“You will be free,” Keith whispered, watching him fiercely.

Matt didn’t want that, he had never wanted to be free. Not from Lotor and not from Keith. Shit.

“Sleep, pest,” he said, suppressing a sob.

Keith smiled and closed his eyes, the lion loose in his grip. “I dreamed of stars, of nebulas and planets, of endlessness.”

“Sleep, Keith,” Matt whispered, pressing a kiss into the sweaty hair. Keith’s fingers twitched, curling slightly

“Purple lights and laser fire. Beautiful.” There was happiness in his voice.

“That you are.”

“We were heroes,” Keith breathed.

“Always.”

Keith smiled and exhaled.

Matt closed his eyes.

The body under his hands went lax.

Matt heard running outside, a voice that vibrated in his bones. He shuddered.

_Don’t_.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave your thoughts as comments, I'd love to hear from you. Find me also on [Twitter: @sparklefly2](https://twitter.com/sparklefly2)


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